XXHighEnd

Hey all,

I finally got around to install my SSD (Solid State Disk) which I had been laying around for several months now. The OS (still Vista SP0) is on there, as well as the Galleries.

After only a few hours of listening I 'd swear the highs are more delicate, but I sure would put some money on the bass having more authority. So, not knowing of another vocabulary of superlatives, I plainly say this is just another improvement.
Please note this is in the environment of not using a pre-amp, where everything is, say, 10 times more profound and more difficult regarding the highs. It already wasn't fatigueing (at all), but the highs tell me this is another leap in being able to play loud without a sense of disturbance.

My main Gallery (comprising of some 11,000 albums by now) loads in 10 seconds doing that the first time after a boot (avoiding cache interfearance), which - to my estimation - was twice as long before.

On a side note, the SSD is IDE (ATA) connected through an IDE-SATA converter (note the decent SSDs are all SATAI) giving no inherit performance degradation, while giving me the space to have mounted 9 DATAII disks (8 internal -, 1 eSata connected) plus the 1 SATAI (64GB) disk where the OS resides.
Awaitening 2GB HDDs, the next step would be a SATAII multiplexor (4 disks to one SATAII channel), knowing that I wouldn't loose on bandwidth since no two SATAII disks would be used at any same time, unless for backup reasons.

To my surprise (or maybe not) the SSD gets fairly hot when intensively used as it was at restoring the OS to it, but is completely cold now it is just "standing by", *knowing* the OS never leaves it alone for more that 4-6 minutes. This, where the normal HDD would keep on spinning forever, hence consuming the power forever, the SSD just proving by her being cold it just matters (for PSU interfearance !).

What's next ?

Hi Peter,

Congratulations on that move, as soon as the first SSD drives were installed I was also thinking that with increasing capacities and falling prices they would be perfect for dedicated music PCs.

It is not just the power consumption. I have the HTPC case in my audio rack and when the disk are spinning it causes vibrations that can be felt even on the lower shelves of the rack. That is on a finite elemente master ref, which I would consider to be excellent with handling vibrations. I have the PC now sitting on a SAP Relaxa magnetic levitation base, which helps damping hard disk vibrations a lot. But still, I am sure things would improve with a SSD disk immediately. Less heat would mean less cooling, also less noise...way to go I would say  :)

I hope to make the same move sometime soon, but I guess I won't get round to do it before 2009...

Best Regards,

Joerg

Before I get accused of wrong advises ... do not replace your OS disk with a SSD right now. IOW :

After a sufficient number of hours using the SSD for the OS, the one thing I can *really* say is that I don't recognize my albums anymore, hence the sound is so much different that I (and the family) have problems with determining the differences. This fact alone, so far, makes me want to move back to the normal spinning disk ...

I have many reasons to believe the playback is actually more accurate, but I have as many reaons to believe it just doesn't work out. Not for my system as a whole. Two main arguments for the latter :

1.
All tracks, no matter from which albums, seem to receive a signature, the best described as a "flair";
All cymbals start to sound the same over (tracks and) albums, and generally one could say that the color has gone, they are more hissing, but also more metal (which latter by itself would be something I was seeking for) :scratching:.

2.
The bass output is so much more that the xover must be tweaked to that, which I feel is wrong (but didn't try anyway). Without this tweaking it really is too much of it, and the sound gets colored because of it.
The phenomenon by itself makes me believe the base now is wrong, knowing that lately (for 6 months at least) tweaking the xover to the bass side did not add coloration, and just more bass only. So, theories say that this is not just more bass, but more wrong bass.

At listening closely - which is very hard because all sounds so different - and listening to the elements of "sound" at my best, I can only say it is better. There is more detail, and to give one example of how one should come to the conclusion things just must have changed for the better : I get crazy of all those guys using a tamborine. Hmm ... they suddenly al do. This is related to the now so profound audible individual "bells" of that instrument, and one of the reasons to believe that things are more accurate. However :

The warmth has disapeared all over, and e.g. a trumpet has become an instrument with a flair, or even sibilance.

Knowing I am crazy anyway, I now imagine the SSD to interact with the PSU (somehow) at a high frequency base, and this is audible and what I perceive. Something like each individual memory element constantly telling its status to the cpu, and already knowing that the influence on the PSU is one of the most important things anyway, this just would be wrong if so indeed.

Added to this, I am fairly sure it is not the OS disk not spinning what I hear. It is too much of it, and besides that, the OS disk isn't always spinning although that would be a coincidence (depending on the coincidence of the (IIRC) in between 6 - 12 minutes no disk access by the OS is required, while the disk spins down after 5 minutes of no access. In other words, if it would be the "no spinning hdd" I perceive, this would have been be the most obvious in between tracks. And I never heard that.
And so it must be the other way around : the SSD just adds things. "Add" is literal, and for audio this means : no good at all.

Now what ?

I know perceived better accuracy can emerge by means of adding noise. Of course it is fake, but for certain frequencies it may enhance them, and make them more profound. However, looking at the squariness of a trumpett, it will work counterproductive, and the squares will receive side products (harmonics), just not belonging there.

I say it again : the sole fact of the sound having changed so much that I can't relate it in a relative manner to how it was, and what actually has changed, is reason enough for me to go back. It would be impossible for me to develop any further, which always comes down to relative changes, and hearing elements which changed for the better or for the worse. Now, this would imply a start all over, which is from theories already not good. It just can't be so this differs so much for the better (which I generally don't perceive either), while at the same time it just *can* be so that all differs so mucg because it changed for the worse. And I already tried to explain it : the SSD adds.

Now, I can imagine that I'm the only one on the globe coming to this conclusion (never investigated it really, but also never heard any negatives about the SSD), but let me be the first then.
Did anyone read about negatives on this somewhere ?

Dave, I know you are using an SSD. Are you able to go back ? Even if it takes you some efforts, please try it. You know you changed your whole system in one go, including using the SSD, and are satisfied. However, you could be way more satisfied without the SSD. Please try it for your own sake.


When I can find some time, I will try to prove what's happening by means of connecting the scope to the PSU or something like that. I think what I hear can be made visible.

Bweh,
Peter

Hmmm

Could this be a W change?  You know I've got V7 still running just because I've been busy and only wanted to listen to music for a while here.  My whole system is new and far superior to the laptop I was using ,,, new system as you know has a SSD for the gallery/Vista only, music files are on external spinning HDDs... that's what you have going on right?  I would have thought, faster access for Vista was the good thing about SSD and possible  better SQ.  Anyway, I'm closer to the music than ever before as far as I'm concerned here.  I'll try to get to W3 this weekend, but I've been busy and digging what I have going on with V to be to concerned about new versions... sorry.  But, make sure you're not hearing version differences?  Try going back to V7? for a bit.

hehe sorry again Peter, Seems like when I make changes here it's almost a whole system overhaul at a time... but I think I've been lucky so far.

ack
I have the means Peter, but I don't know about the time.  Would have to be this weekend.  Would have to install Vista 64 prem on a Western digital VelociRaptor HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296 I have sitting here to go into a machine I'm building for my daughter.  Mainly the tweaking of Vista for a music transport .... takes me a long time.  Let me give it some thought and maybe I can do it this weekend.  It sounds important to you, so I'll work on it... Gordon of Wavelength Audio is swearing by these SSD as being very much superior to spinning drives for the OS... but I know, you need to know for yourself, so I'll try to help.  I think too, I'm pretty biased in my mind right now that it, SSD, should be the best way to go, but... k, I'm curious now too.  I'll stick with XXHE V7 for compare sake ...yes?

Aren't you saying in your posts that you're happy, that it is a better SQ... or you're not sure because it has changed the SQ so much.... something about everything sounding the same...ok.

It's funny you've mentioned trumpet, I've been listening to lots of jazz trumpet lately, today was a marathon of Miles davis, and I told you about that other guy I was listening to.... I like it.  So much detail yes.  On the new system Q1 changes are very evident.... I've gone from -2 to 0 to 2 to 4 and back all over... -2 very detailed/clear...too much? is that possible... but 4 bringing back the warmth/color..dunno.. sooo hmmm.  My friend, who is just barely familiar with the new system is very excited, and thinks it's heads and tails above the laptop, (not a hard feat since Andy's core2duo laptop beat it handily too), but even he could hear changes easily on Q1 settings.... not so easy to hear on the laptop.

This is probably unrelated... read above posts first Peter.
But just curious, a lot of people have had problems with their slightly older PCs and SSD using MLC mem as opposed to the SLC.  My OCZ SSD is MLC but I have had no problems at all ... blazingly fast install of Vista.  People have suggested that this:

"One thing I remember, if you don't have the right controller on the motherboard it may not work well for you... look for this chipset:
South Bridge Intel ICH10R"

Does your MB use this chipset?  just curious.... Sounds like you haven't had any real problems with your SSD, so like I said, unrelated curiosity.

Thank you for your extensive replies Dave.

First thing, and not to forget : When you'd try the normal spinning disk there is really no way you would do that for my sake, helping, confirmation or anything of the kind. You would do it for YOU and only you. So, if it is too much trouble, and you are confident you just don't want anything else/better, spend you time in a useful way, like listening to music with a couple of glasses with good contents, and a cigar for a change. :)

I survived yesterday again (and you know I actually won't go for less than a week of listening to the same after a change, just to form the right opinion), but this time I last with the situation in order to "hear" what could be going on. And the funny thing is, when I went to bed yesterday I came to a rather similar thinking as you just wrote :


But different ...
What slipped through my mind is that I am using this small IDE-SATA converter, because I don't want to loose a SATAII connection for the large music disks. And, this converter even needs power ...
So now I think (and by now supported to what you came up with) that it might be this thingy doing it to me, and different from the actually passive SSD disk, this thingy indeed could be sending interrupts all over, even to the sense of "I have nothing to do !".

Ok, writing about this now takes longer than trying a different setup, and this just needs to connect the SSD disk to a normal SATAII connection. The difference will be audible within 2 seconds anyway. Will let you know tomorrow.


Anothing thing : As I said elsewhere, indeed there is a difference in SQ between 0.9v and 0.9w, but you have to limit the used memory first. The difference is fragile, but IMO more lean and IMO for sure better.
My current SSD setup just destroys it all.

Btw, let's keep in mind what I said earlier : I can hear the SSD is better fo a few reasons, but net it doesn't work out. Such a thing usually indicates that 2 things changed in one time, and with my above explanation this would be true indeed (changing the "controller" and changing the disk type).

This reminds me of the 0.9d period, where each of two versions showed better behaviour but in different areas and how to combine the goodies of each into one version. Nice challenges.

Just in brief :

Didn't investigate the South Bridge yet, but removed the little "controller" and attached the SSD to a normal SATAII line : no difference.
Then reinstalled the spinning disk : all OK.

There is something seriously wrong with the SSD, and since it won't be skipping bits or anything of the kind, it is the most seriously influencing jitter or whatever it is.

I tend to investigate the reasons, but think it is a waste of time to ever go back.
It is the most influencing phenomenon I ever experienced, and I don't like that for a fact. At all.

If this is so (so so so so much) influencing, what other things do we have ?

:old:

I'll set up my spinning disc as soon as possible... well, with the hope of even better SQ.  Exactly what SSD do you have? (Wasn't it the exact same as mine OCZ 128 GB sata II?).  Could it be possible it is a "radiating bad stuff" thing?; have you tried moving it away from "sensitive" stuff? (mine is pretty far removed from the MB)  Do check on your MB controller type just to see Peter, thanks.

I have an OCZ 64GB (and btw, I don't think SSDs exist in SATAII, only SATAI).

My chipset is the ICH8, but I must be careful, because there's also a JMicron part in there, and the lot can be controlled by 3 "drivers". Since I'm not using RAID this is beyond the user (me anyway) what you're actually using.

Actually I don't care that it doesn't work out, but I *DO* want to know what the heck this is about. It sure cannot be about not reading (and presenting) the data properly.


Yea, and I told you that listening to Ritchie Vitale couldn't surive the first track at Mondays. Tried again Tuesdays with the 2nd and 3rd track, and after the 3rd my wife told me it was quite boring and I agreed and switched it off. Yesterday (Wednesday) after the restoration of the spinning OS disk, I didn't realize I ran 2 tracks the day before, so put on the 2nd track while actually wanting something new (I can't "A-B" with the same tracks hahaha). What I immediately sensed was romance, a man blowing a horn with feeling. It was interesting all over, never mind the slow song. Then I realized it was the same track from the day before which was so boring ...
This time the whole album was listened out, and I came to the conlcusion it had nothing to do with not being in the mood for this kind of music (which I thought at first), the other days. It was a lousy SSD.

It is so strange to experience it : Not in all music the bad behaviour of the SSD can be heard. But last night, when all was right again, all music showed the happiness again ("happiness" is really a phenomenon I recognize lately; when all is good, music is a party). Everybody starts swinging automatically. It didn't happen with the SSD.
Now why ...

IIRC the IDE port is NOT part of intel ICH from ich7.

BTW there ARE serious problems with MLC SSD units (all but Intel) with intel controllers, so serious that you may have 1-3s pauses of everything, including music. You dont have such because you minimized services and cpu/disk usage.
So, you have a problem. The solution is not cheap, either way. Get a MLC disk, get an Intel MLC disk, or get an Areca sata raid card.

SeVeRed, do you have the same type of SSD?
I do THINK to agree with Gordon that SSD SHOULD be better for a music pc...

Besides, Windows7 will improve SSD speed and functionalities and may be good for sound too. A Beta2 or perhaps RC0 will be worth to try.

Hey, thanks for the info Telstar.
Can you point me to a thread about this ? I want to understand what's actually wrong, or maybe contribute to that thread. Depending on how the situation is, get my money back maybe. :nea:

In the very end I want to taste the benefits, where one of them is speed (it really matters).

Read all this article:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=7

There is some discussion on various hw forums, my favourite is xtreme systems. No thread that i know talks about audio performance.
But the latency issue IS an issue, due to intel ich and the jmicron controller of the majority of MLC SSD drives.
I dont think you can get a refund, but I hope u try soon a different SSD drive and post an update.

Here is my SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227345
dunno, says sata II... but who cares... since it has seemed to work well in my system. (see link in my sig for complete system)  Other people have had horrendous problems with this SSD, to the point of not even able to do a Windows install without errors.

I think this is the reason why I've been lucky; my MB has this:
South Bridge Intel ICH10R as a controller  (... do I remember something about the R designation being important in SSD working well ...?)
Others have said they see no problems.
Do you remember I posted spec numbers from that program "HD Tunes" someone told me about here?  Have you seen what numbers it gives you and compared?... I don't know what that means,,, but thought it might give some insight... 


From Peter
"My chipset is the ICH8 ... "
I know I've read somewhere that this chipset is a problem area for the OCZ MLC... people are really pissed.
edit
now I've read some posts that say ICH8 worked fine for people... dunno

In any case, I really hope to do a back to back with the VelociRaptor HDD and the OCZ SSD drive this weekend.  Once I set up, (no small thing trying to remember all the tweaks), I'll use the same sata cable & power cable and just switch back and forth between reboots.... The VelociRaptor HDD is about as fast as the spinning drives come, so, may give some interesting insight this weekend.

... and in any case, glad your systems back to sounding good... and who knows, maybe mine will sound even better with the VelociRaptor HDD installed.

ALSO
this is what drives me bonkers...
this is the OCZ manufacturer response to  someone complaining about an OCZ SSD drive:

"Manufacturer Response:Hello, we appreciate your input. These drives use MLC technology and are priced much lower (about 1/2 the price) than the faster SLC drives. We encourage customers to research these drives based on their application before purchasing. If your application includes writing large amounts of data, or you do allot of multitasking,
 
the OCZ SATA II drives for sale here on Newegg are a better choice. They use SLC technology

and have both extremely fast read and write performance. We will be glad to answer any questions potential customers may have on our support forums at the link below.
Thank you

External Link(s):
OCZ Support Forums|"

So??? do I have the new SLC because my drive is labled OCZ SATA II or MLC ???

Lots of confusing info.  Anyways, no more time for this tonight
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/index.php

Found this:
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/staff/ryderocz/ssd/ssd_config.pdf
Says you need to install Vista service pack 1 ??

I'll be coming back on a few things, but haven't got much time right now.

Dave, try to make like more comfortable when you are going back to the spinning disk :

1.
If possible use another PC and connect the (SSD) OS disk to that. Now make a backup of that disk with any software able to backup an OS. Then connect the (due) spinning disk, and restore the backup to that. Mount it in the music PC - done.

2.
Note : appropriate backup software will be able to make a backup of a "live" OS disk, hence it theoretically will be able to do that just in your Vista machine (and of course is then able to restore that backup to the due spinning OS disk). BUT :
Acronis would be such software, which DID NOT WORK for me. So no matter what, don't go this route with that (#1 worked though with Acronis). After the restore (#2) it appears that some "live" data wasn't backupped, and the first thing after rebooting with the restore is "Windows wasn't shut down properly", and after a few reboots you end up with an empty screen and nothing to do (this is an Acronis version which supports Vista, huhmm).

Better invest in this "backup - restore" feature, because it will be guaranteed that you end up with the same settings. And in the mean time you'll be having a (guaranteed) backupped OS ...

Using the Intel 10ch controller with a 2xVelociraptor raid 0 setup for boot here myself.

Severed made a good point over: the v6a I'm using is definitely better sounding than W3 which I tried today. Have therefore gone back to v6a.

The W3 sounds closed-in and amputated in comparison. See full info in thread under SQ-section.

Have not tried SSD yet here, but frankly...don't think it's there the difference lies. More your use of another controller card Peter, maybe.

Try to hook it directly to the Intel 10CH.

And PLEASE try v6a instead of W...try to hear what I'm hearing here. Maybe it's not only me who's crazy... :)

In fact I should try 0.9-v6 with the SSD. Uh-ooh, now I'm getting really confused :

As said, to me it feels the SSD is better, but it doesn't workout. Now what if it emphasizes the baddyness of 0.9w ? (emphasizes = more accurate). THE NATURE IS QUITE THE SAME ... I must admit that.

Oh boy.

Edit :

Did that ... (8ch).





(PS : Yes Dave, you suggested that it could be the XX version. Of course I didn't try. :smirk:).

Ok, wanted to come back on this one.

Read the article, and all what is in there looks completely, say, logical to me (with some extended knowledge of "performance" issues on computing), and regarding to this, these are my observations :

Yes, there seems to be some "interaction" going on between some backend (the SSD) response, and general things you are doing on the PC (those general things for me would be the development of XX which happens in Vistual Studio). The "response" behaviour (take that literal now) is a little different. Small stalls are there which weren't there before.

During just using XX the comparison is somewhat more difficult. At using the spinning disk

- All is slower in general (note this is about accessing the Galleries only, and of course the OS itself needing the data on the disk).
- It rather frequently happens that I have to wait the standard 6-7 seconds before anything happens, because the disk has to spinup (it stops after 5 minutes of inactivity which latter is rather random (see the tweaked my Vista virtually to dead topic).
- Behaviour is consistent.

At using the SSD :

- No signature of waiting for the disk to "wake up" ever.
- No response at certain tasks, but, never bothering because you're not waiting for it.

The last one is what is described in the thread Telstar referred to, hence I'm sure that is happening. Thus :
At converting (mostly FLACs) at a certain stage a buffer seems to run full, but the way 0.9w works causes you won't notice by means of the sound already playing (this would be different for 0.9v for sure because there all the conversions need to be complete before playback starts).
The only way you notice this is at the XXHighEnd form staying there, all disk activity stops, but also cpu activity stops. So, it stalls. Sound just continues because of the high priority which is put to that, and again, it actually doesn't bother.

Net, I prefer the SSD a 100 times.

I have been thinking whether this could influence sound quality, but keep in mind that "this" would be the stalling "process", and I do not recognize at all that such a thing may happen, or is encouraged for during playback, when - or everything is already in memory - or only disk reads are in order (no large bulk writes). So from that view it can't influence.

Note that it can be proven that when a track of e.g. 10 minutes is loaded into memory, just zero I/O applies, excpect for that 3 times (very small) happening once per 6 - 12 minutes (tweaked to dead thread).

For the spinning disk those I/O's prove to be not important to anything, because when the spinning disk stopped spinning, nothing is bothered by it, and the 7 seconds it takes to spinup the disk doesn't stall anything really (all is just buffered, and no to the user visible process stalls or holds up anything for that user).

What happens when the SSD (controler) can't deal with -I assume- writes i hard to tell. Indeed it will be the controler starting to hold up things because the disk tells "wait a minute please" (the minute being literal almost as per the thread Telstar referred to :)) and where the disk will be able to have dealt with writing in a few ms the controler thinks differently about this and just stops longer.
It is here where the dangerous part emerges, because from now on things are dealt with by means of interrupts. Interrupts are dangerous because they can emerge 1000ths of times per second, do not eat cpu,but stall the complete system. And, when something is not communicating properly, even the disk telling it is ready (which would be an interrupt by itself) won't come through because of the stream of interrupts the controller is generating. Note that this stream could be "questions" towards the disk which should happen per e.g. 1 ms, but instead it happens each us occupying the bus concerned, the answer (from the disk) not even coming through.

Remember, it was proven (Telstar thread) that something of this kind happens at burst writes.
These burst writes just don't happen during playback, nor does the OS incur for that (proven by myself), and all 'n all it is my conclusion that this is not related (to sound quality).
Note though that one of the first things I said is that it felt like each memory cell is talking to something (like the controller), which would be a very similar activity as the interrupts I just described. But I think this is a coincidence ...


I could keep on talking about what could be the matter, but right now it would be my idea indeed that the SSD incurs for more accuracy because of just more stable (or hardly noticeable) requirements from the PSU opposed to the spinning disk. Actually no different from how anything works out within the PC for PSU matters. This would come down to better emphasation of the base sound i.e. the stream as spit out by XX, and that stream is wrong. It is wrong (or not as nice) opposed to an earlier version, and it *is* true that the change in sound I noticed from the v to the w verions has a nature that seems to be emphasized with the SSD. So, stop talking and back to 0.9-v6 including going back to the SSD (which I will do in one go).

Hi LydMekk,
I hear what you're saying, but just to be clear, I haven't even loaded up any W versions yet.  Last version I've tried and am still using is V7.  I'm in the process of readying the HDD right today.  I'm really curious though, if the SSD that I have isn't fundamentally a different SSD than Peters, even though the same manufacturer.

Dave, please don't bother. No matter how I hate it to be true, 0.9w is just no good.
Don't waste your time on it.

Right now I tend to believe playing with the SSD as OS disk has better SQ than I ever experienced. With 0.9v6a that is ...

Am I allowed to give this topic a twist ? :grazy:

I know, it has only be one evening of listening, but I dare say : go for the SSD.
I, and maybe more, have wasting my time on the 0.9w (-1, -2, -3) versions because it was really that doing it (wrongly) ...

Now, at using 0.9v-6a, it turns out that using the SSD for the OS disk just works out for the better. It incurs for more accuracy, and whatever the base of playback is, it is more accurately played.
Note : I used 0.9v-6a because I didn't know there was a 0.9v-7 as well (how could I know :scratching: :)), and I have no reasons to believe 0.9v-7 doesn't work out the same (but has many useful functional enhancements opposed to 0.9v-6a).

0.9w (-1, -2, -3) has something wrong in it, and the SSD indeed emphasizes it. Ah, the SSD just emphasizes. And luckily now things are consistent again, because I seemed to hear the SSD being "better" right from the beginning (read back this topic) ... better at reproducing what it's fed with (hahaha don't think about this latter, or your mind will get into a knot). :heat:

I am sorry for all the confusement, and I can only say that sometimes things get really difficult.
One thing I like the very best, and that is that in here we are not just copying each other's words and feelings and hence won't get placebo'd by that.
Keep that up.

Peter :soundsgood:

but important hyperbole none the less...
Western digital VelociRaptor HDD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296
vs
SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227345

K, this was a tough back and forth.  Been doing it most the late afternoon and into this 2am region.  I'm reasonably sure all variables were the same except for the hdd/ssd,  (I can't believe I listened to scheme 3 on hdd vs scheme 1 on ssd for the first hour... hehe; for both the ssd&hdd I've ended this evening on scheme 1, but some of the evening I did scheme 3... another discussion...).  Each drive received the same windows tweaks following Peter's guide.  In the end, it is clear that the SSD presents better SQ than the HDD, and even though it took time to get a handle on it, I'd say the SSD is something I'm really glad to have.

ok, when all is said and done, there is not much to say.
The difference is the added distortion I hear riding on top of the music with the HDD compared to the SSD.  The only question to answer was the SSD striping music to get this more clear see through live view of the music, and that answer is, no.  Distortion came in the way of glare/sibilance/added noise surrounding the music... veiling the music...all very subtle stuff.  The SSD just doesn't do that to the music.... just needed to make sure it wasn't part of the recordings.  The SSD better presents the music without this distortion, and still keeps it whole and round.

In back and forth play were:
Keith Jarrett - At the Bluenote II
Beethoven - Lindsay Quartet - #7
Punch Brothers - Punch
Miracle Fortress - Five Roses
Miles Davis & John Coletrane - Complete Columbia Recordings
Ella Fitzgerald - Clap Hands...
Bebo Valdes & Diego El Cigala -Lagrimas Negras
Richie Vitaleo -Live at Smalls (ya, your wife can be right... lotta noodleling, some songs are ok, recording ok)
Chet Baker - Lerner & Loewe
Poncho Sanchez - Out of Sight
Negativland - Free
Spooky Ruben - Modes of Transportation

... and others, this was a long session, good night

edit
Be careful about jumping into a SSD and do your homework.... some people have had really bad experiences with them not working well with their computers.

aarrrgggggggg you dog heheh
ima havta keel u now.

Hi sdd owners,

You all are playing music that is stored on HDD and the OS incl XX on the SDD??? But what if you put some music on the SDD en start playing does that sound different/better?

 :)

I haven't put the music on SDD... with only 128 GB of space on the SSD and TBs of music... I don't want to know... heh.  It really wouldn't make any sense at all that it would sound better...  Especially my whole album wav/cue file ... but maybe I'll give it a whirl some time.

The reason i asked was this what you wrote... And maybe this will be  also for the music on the hdd. And maybe when you like to listen to a complete cd('s) it could be worth the trouble to copie that cd ('s) ( temporary) to SDD before listening. (


 :)

Gerard, assuming that I have some authority left (which is not likely :no:), this is what is happening in the base :

- The OS being on the HDD will keep it spinning forever (as long as we can't get rid of those few I/O's it does once per 6-12 minutes);
- The spinning of a disk influences sound (via the PSU);
- At least when you just start playback of a track, the disk providing the music data (which will not be the OS disk) spins just the same. You could say "so, that can't be avoided, why bother". True, but with the OS disk that's two disks spinning now.
- Personally I think there is more to it, meaning that the OS bening on the HDD incurs for more "bad SQ" apart from disks spinning. I mean, the difference in SQ when the OS is on the SSD is just too large to blame "a" (!!) spinning disk.

Then :
- When you play a FLAC (or any file which must be converted) it *is* played from the OS disk (better : from the disk where XX resides).
- IMO this can hardly be related because the only thing what happens is that the converted file is read - done. Of course, with the HDD this incurs for spinning the disk ...

Lastly :
I have already in mind to provide an explicit "copy to the OS disk" of the files to play (as implied by the Playlist Selection), just to allow for what you just asked (copy temporarily). Why ? this will spinup the music containing disks only at the start of playback (mind you Unattended, otherwise the lot won't work), and the explicit copy to the OS disk (conversion needed or not) will from then on let stand still all the disks in the system. Only with the SSD (and the OS being on that) of course.
The explicit copy will hardly be noticeable, just as the conversion including such a copy is not (0.9w and up only !).

Peter

Thank you very much Dave. It is the most convenient to have at least two voices in the same direction (even if one of them is less trustworthy me :)).
So you were already used to it, but I think last night I received the best playback in my life. Imagine, in the end I was listening to russian choires. :prankster:

Morning Peter,
I trust your ears implicitly by this point.  You heard what you heard and reported back instead of covering up like some in the music industry do.  You just needed to find out what was going on.  When you read through your posts you see you were spot on ... you basically said, there was something good going on, but also something bad, and you couldn't put your finger on it yet ... like two things had changed at once.  I'm pretty happy now to really know that this SSD is a large part of why everything sounds especially good.  And btw everyone, I couldn't really tell a difference in speed with the VelociRaptor HDD (boot up/gallery search), and it wasn't that far behind the SSD SQ wise, but ... which is hard for me to say though, cause once you hear the difference type of thing... I am now even more appreciative of the SSD I guess after picking things apart. 

edit.  Come to think of it, I kinda do think it's a big difference SQ wise.  I've spent a lot more in audiophool stuff and gotten a lot less back... so, well, an inch is a mile in audiophooldom.  I wouldn't want to go back to a spinning drive now.

Uhmm, this is just for your information :

During the lifetime of XP, I experienced once, and only once (btw measured over lots of PC's in the company) that XP found problems in the hdd structure, and I had to run the good old CHKDSK/F.

Now, after the SSD being mounted a couple of days, tonight suddenly I couldn't retrieve my C:\Galleries\ because a corrupted file was in there (at the "Enumerate folders" process). So, I added the folder concerned in the message XXHighEnd provided, and could find the causing folder (indicating an artist folder in my case). Found (via normal Explorer) two albums (Gallleries of that) which were corrupted. At trying to tweak things via a Dos box, I was advised (by mr. Vista) to run CHKDSK/F.

I did, and numerous errors were fixed (hundreds if not more).

The errors just emerged at the PC never being down in between or any other anomaly occurring. In fact, it must have happened the PC just waiting for me to come home (not hybernating or sleeping).
Is this a coincidence ? I can't believe that (although it can).

So this is just a warning to myself : may the ssd incur for lost data in very normal circumstances ?
:unsure:

Have heard about similar events with SSDs causing data crash... sitting pretty on the fence for the time beeing, thank you very much!  :(

Not saying it's that, but having a gnaving suspicion...  ;)

Btw. they report 2 (or more) different SSD technologies and one of them is supposed to be much better regd. error situations. Can't say which but if you google a bit ?

Also not all controllers handle SSD perfectly. Also as by Google.
 
And, due to the excessive price atm. SSD is gonna wait for my part.

I'm thinking,... dangerous yes, but I'm thinking I dodged a bullet with my
OCZ Core Series OCZSSD2-1C128G 2.5" 128GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
and it is actually SLC memory...
chk this post out by Gordon of Wavelength audio,,, he's saying it is.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/4/40013.html
I've also found hints?? from the manufacturer posting that it is... it's been a tough confirm, I should just call teh company to find out for sure, but I think this SATA II is actually sourced from samsung.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227345
Maybe why I've had good luck.

http://www.ocztechnology.com/images/Configuring-and-Setting-Up-SSDs.pdf

Which tells about it all, and with the most important message that Vista SP0 is not suitable.
Time for me to move to SP1 ...

hmm
So, good I have sp1 Vista? But I thought you're concerned about SP1.  I don't know, but it's been good for me, or I don't know what sp0 would have been like compared.  Will you be able to slipstream sp1 update with your Vista sp0 when you reinstall... I'd think you'd have to or you'll just end up with vista sp0 and errors and then try to upgrade to sp1.

... which I did a while ago now, and I can't say it got any better because of that.
Unexpected little "stalls" seem to have gone, but "minute long" stalls got in place of that.
Besides that, things seem to become more and more slow, and while converting a FLAC album can go in 10-15 seconds, this now merely takes 3-4 minutes. This is most clear when the last two tracks (at first written in cache presumeably) may take well over 3 minutes to complete writing to the SSD (hence, this is when XXHighEnd disappeared, and *then* the writing still takes place for 3-4 minutes).
Hard reboot (power off) has become more of a habit, and I don't recall this from SP0 and/or the normal spinning disk.

Obtaining the complete library of albums (well over 10,000) is still a few seconds work, but now there's something like waking up the SSD (10-15 seconds) after a loinger time of no access, which I didn't see before. This by itself may be a good sign btw.

But I don't trust this all ...

Sounds familiar from my exp. with a Asus Cee 900. Sometimes long pauses where the disc light is on but the machine is "working" and nothing happens for a minute or so...small operations is in play when this happens, should take seconds.

It comes back but takes time.

Creepy...

Nah, my combo of 2xVelociraptor 300's in RAID 0 is perfect in use IMO. Will hang on to those for the time being.

Hope you get better stability though. Cross fingers.

Peter, get an intel SSD.

Yep, I guess I'm up to it.
Yesterday I rebooted the PC (which may happen once in a few days) and there I had it : Windows Kernel is missing.
Hahahaha, that seems a rather important thingy to me. Should reside in NTKRNLPA.EXE.

Well, I trew the SSD out, stuffed the still available spinning OS disk in again (back to SP0 dutch version :evil:), and then it immediately occurred to me again : this is more "less harsh". Also what I got back were the very very straight guitar strings I had been missing for a while (like with no (micro) vibrato at all), and again I now think the SSD is not good;

Afterwards thinking back, it looks like it creates some fake sharpness to the sound. So yes, it sounds more sharp in a positive sense, but it is not natural. Now things are more warm. More live-like. More easy to get into the (music and the) musicians.

In the mean time I can't bear all the changes ! :swoon:
:)


PS: checkdisk/f didn't show any errors this time, nor did I encounter any other anomalies with the SSD the last weeks since SP1. So I'm not sure it is the SSD which failed ...

Peter, Since you threw out your SSD, I will be glad to take it off your hands?   :)

too bad it's not working for you, but that's the price we pay when we buy very new technology....
we become beta testers or should I say guinea pigs...

cheers..

My machine is still running strong/smoothly and, I think, sounding great...
Course,
I don't beat my machine up like Peter does.
(I did just update windows because of the IE hole that was found and also allowed some security patches to be installed ... that's always scarey to let MS do that.  Hope SQ didn't change)

One question for the SSD-users, what kind of powercleaning are you using?
To me it sounds like the SSD gives some more electronic garbage back to the powersupplies.
I guess a spinning harddiskengine is more harmless in this way, different frequencies and such..
Maybe some powercleaning here and there could help or not?

That very well could be. But the stupid thing is "we" applied the SSD for better sound. And the sound sure becomes different from it. The question is why and if it is really better.
If the sound doesn't change, I don't need it ... :innocent:



True true ... with me it is a rest for one side of the DAC powerplant ... :)

Sorry, but with my shootout between the SSD and the HDD I had I would say it was the HDD that could use some power cleaning,,, it was in that very area I thought the SSD beat out the HDD ... I felt there was less "hash" in the music and that I hadn't stripped any music in doing so.  I was pretty thorough when I went back and forth that time, I'm pretty confident this time that the SSD was better.

ps
Can I get "crazy audiophile" tags like you too peter?  I think I've earned it.

Half a year later ...

Back on an SSD (OCZ Vertex) and ... man, what a difference. I missed this !!
Now let's see whether this one keeps on working. But I'd almost say, if not, then not. I'll apply a restore and in 20 minutes I'll be playing again. It's really worth it.

Dave, Leif, I even turned down my Q2 a bit. I thought it could take it ... :)

Peter, how is the overall speed performance with SSD?

Using xxhe, as in loading audio files and pictures and to get in unattended and
restore services and stuff like that.

And how behaves Vista on SSD compares to normal HDD.
Does it speed up certain things! :15a:
Just curious what your experiences are!

roy

My SSD is still running great.  Since I use Peter's Gallery scheme and I have my Gallery on the SSD I think it helps a lot for scrolling through the pictures in the library tab.  My WAV/CUE files are on external HDDs daisy chained via FireWire to the computer.... and they go to sleep very soon after being used.... so,
my biggest wait time is after I select an album to play from the gallery, it takes 30 seconds to wake up the external hardrive to load the wav/cue into the playlist.
My computer is dedicated to XXHE and that is pretty much the only program on there... so can't answer how the SSD works with Vista in general.

Thnx SeVeRed,

you are fast too! :15a:, Haha

I had problems with the gallery too,
Now using Folders with Artists\album\multiple FLAC's.
And for 2CD abums using (CD1) and (CD2) before name creation in EAC and put in same folder.

Check my new thread

Roy

I estimate it to be twice as fast on actually everything that requires speed, like :

- Presenting Gallery contents;
- OS Startup;
- OS Shutdown.

There's other minor stuff like writing converted (etc.) files, which is minor because the I/O needed is relative to other things, and it hardly *can* matter, but what is important is that it's not slowing down, which my former SSD certainly did.
So, everything faster or equal.

And no anomalies seen yet. The old one would have had 3 or so in this period.

Btw, didn't perform a fresh install (same as with the other one), and just made backup of the OS disk and restored that onto the SSD (including boot track).

And the sound still satisfies me. :)

Peter

SSD as only internal drive for OS, Gallary, EAC,.. Can I use in a dedicated HTPC configuration a 30 GB SSD? Or better to go for the 60GB version?  What are the future developments of XXHE, gygabyte related?

Johan

Peter,

You decided to go for the vertex and not wait for the intel to drop in price?
Knowing you then the Vertex must come close to the intel?

Yep, based on my suggestion. The vertex is close in performance to the intel MLC, a difference unnoticeable just playing music. It does not hangs like the old models and it is cheap, especially the 30gb version.

Peter got the 60gb verison because he has the development suite and needs more space, but we should be fine with 30gb (this answer the previous post).

Running a HTPC 60 GB would be better
I'm running a HTPC and using 32GB of OS space by now

But 30 GB should do the job ! But in my case i would make an image of my OS
Otherwise I have to start over (again)

roy

How? My fresh w7 64bit uses about 10gb.
We are talking about a pc dedicated to audio (no office, etc)

You are quit right Telstar, :yes:

I decided to get myself a OCZ vertex 30 GB, as second OS only for audio.
Maybe make partition on it and use 6/10 GB for pagefile for other OS.

Do a clean install,

What should be on there only drivers, Vista( or W7) and XXHe ?
And Tweak Vista to dead like in peters forum.
And some other settings.
Should I close all usb ports, bluetooth, onboard soundcard and such.
(and shutdown as many services as possible)

Using http://www.blackviper.com/

And what about System-restore (we have a back-up), Internet, anti-virus do we need that


Just got mail, can pick it up on monday :yahoo:

What is best to use Vista or trying W7(got the .iso on disc) first?


This is also because having some troubles as in not being able to play 24/96 files
(this is a vista problem so quickest way to check this do a clean install)
Would like to hear Al Di Meola Jmcl & pdl - a friday night in san fransisco
in 24/96.
And Autohotkey has a minor glitch.

Maybe some advise in what can be turnt off.

Have a nice weekend


PS: Peter, Do I need new key for W7?

AHUM

Roy, if I had thought about this yesterday I would have said it yesterday. You, with your mega speed internet ... I hope you are not into downloading HD movies. But if you are ... before they go to their end location, they go to the OS disk first ...
A HD movie can be something like 25GB ?

Yes, you will need a new key fo W7. But that's no problem.


PS: Since you will be collecting the SSD, there's a fair chance you can trade for a bigger one on the spot. If needed. But I would call first (and start crying next to the good morning :cry: :)).

On the other hand, I think "that" location can be moved to somewhere else ...

He must also move the TMP and Temp (ideally to the same drive where he would download or decompress stuff) folders from advanced system settings.

Dont partition, put the pagefile on the same partition. SSD do not defragment in the traditoinal way.


Yes, disable ALL peripherals that you dont need to use. USB may be needed for mouse or keyboard, irDA etc.
blackviper site does not work. What's that?

Anyway you NEED to disable disk defragmenter on the SSD drive. Disable also indexing service (that i would turn off completely in a music pc).


Keep system restore, it is the best thing since Vista came. You need no internet nor antivirus, but if you need to get updates now and then and cannot do though a lan, you should install a good AV, then go online, do all updates and then uninstall the antivirus.


I would try W7 RC first. If you are fine with the drivers, it cannot be worse for sound than Vista. (SP2 is coming too slowly)
Second best would be to wait for Vista SP2 install dvd (no updates needed in that case).

Thnx Telstar,

Got the video-card driver and soundcard drivers for W7 already downloaded
So no problem in that.
Thnx for point on defagmention (does it ever dfrg)?
Indexing has been off forever, already

And Peter, this is just a OS for audio.
Not for downloading HD movies, can do that on other OS.
Don't understand your point here !
Even on other OS its using a special 1TB HDD for saving my downloads
That means 3 partions Incoming, outgoing, finished

just reading a post on other forum

Quote:
When a solid state drive is present, Windows 7 will disable disk defragmentation, Superfetch, ReadyBoost, as well as boot and application launch prefetching.

“These technologies were all designed to improve performance on traditional HDDs, where random read performance could easily be a major bottleneck,” explained Fortin.
One of the more notable advancements in Windows 7 is support for the Trim command.

I am lost for words that MS did something that smart.

Roy

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-solid-state-drives-ssd,7717.html#xtor=RSS-181

Yes, but dunno if the RC has this feature already.
W7 will be the first SSD optimized OS. Especially "trim" is very important to avoid degradation.

But if you dont move the temporary folders it will try to download first on the OS drive.
Got it now? :)

Yes, I guess

But the W7 RC OS is only for audio playback ussage.

I use Emule for DL,
I don't think it puts anything on C: drive

So ...we don't think you got it yet. :) :)

Keep in mind though : a torrent might indeed "copy" directly (otherwise how to seed), but a normal download (like rightclick - Save) will not. So, you might say "Save to G:" etc. but first it will go to a temporary file on C:. When all is there, the OS copies from that temporay location to G:.

But as you said, this PC is for audio.
Btw, you also said "I have one PC only" (well, similar).
:whistle:

There will be no torrent or something else on W7 OS
Only audio PLAYBACK.
For other usage like, Hmm everthing else.
Using my other OS that is on a spinning HDD

Sorry, if I don´t get it,
I´m also here to learn from you guys.
Setting up my first real PC just a half year a go, so!

Everything stays the same in my one and only PC, just gets a new OS for just playback.
as in double OS

Thnx

is my rule of thumb if I'm not using it.  My machine is dedicated to Peter's XXHighEnd.
First: I followed Peter's guide.
Second: I went to BlackViper site and shut down a couple more things, (no memory for what I did...and it wasn't much since Peter hit the big things).
Third: I went into the bios and shut down everything I could that I don't use, such as/especially USB.  Took the power/sata off my DVD drive, (I don't rip with XXHE computer).
Forth: I disable/enable ethernet as needed.  Along with shutting down/muting everything I can in the Fireface software (Settings & Mixer), I also exit out of the two FireFace programs that are started (Settings & Mixer), (think I heard a difference here Peter bleh).  I disabled all other audio things the FF loads in audio properties that aren't used.

(no I've never tried to listen to all changes if there's a difference... I just do this stuff having learned that even if I can't hear it, things add up; but one thing that I've never had is any major problems running XXHE)

I don't run any Antivirus software.  (Never have on any of my computers.  On my home computers [gaming rig, browsing rig, daughter's rig] I just manually check for viruses using SuperAntiSpyware, Malwarebytes, combofix, regsupreme, or an online site called Trend Micro HouseCall.)  I've never gotten a vicious virus, but I don't pirate online much.

The music computer is too new to think about doing this, but every now and then I format my drives and reinstall the OS...heh, so ya, important stuff is always backed up.  I probably won't reinstall until I'm ready to try W7.

I just checked my SSD (it's the 128 GB size).  I have just over 40 GBs on it now.  If you read above, I basically only run XXHE.  Here's where it gets big.  My Gallery size is up to almost 20GB .... and I haven't even organized everything onto galleries yet.  I imagine that when I do that this summer, the gallery folder on the SSD could easily top 40GB ... hehe have a lot of music.  Remember, these aren't the actual music wav files, those are on external HDDs using FW, but I guess the picture files and such that Peter loads into the galleries can start taking up space if you have a lot of music.

Yeh,

Something like that,
except the bios settings in my case isn't do-able.(2xOS)

then :whistle:

How to set those galleries on main drive then, with special software or what?
It's indeed a smart thing to do.
I looked at my total size of images it takes up 25 GB.

So maybe I do need a 60 GB SSD, :smirk:

Within XXHE > Settings Tab > Music Root ... this is where you tell XXHE where your gallery is.  One of the reasons I bought an SSD drive is because I wanted my gallery browsing to speed up (so gallery folder needs to be on SSD) ... it did, and I got the bonus of better SQ.

I'm sorry but don't get that,

pics are now in folders together with flac,
how to get pics in a certain gallery folder on main drive??

You probably need to read about how to set up a gallery ... (somewhere on this site; I'll link later if I have the time to search).  Real basic, (but you'll want to think about what categories or however you want it organized)... you go to Library tab, right click on your selection and you'll see a send to gallery selection.... you'll really need to read more than this if you don't have stuff set up yet.  Once you understand it will be easy... hehe but this is what I tell my 1st graders as a teacher... everythings easy once you understand it.

Yes, thnx didn't see that,
but thats very nice,

Because pics were slowing me down!

Thnx SeVeReD for reporting this on time!

Checking it out now !

And get a 60 GB SSD then

thx done, :biglol:

13 GB of gallery space total.

roy

Hiya Dave,

I thought I was the only one on the globe not to have any anti-virus stuff on my PC's wherever. Nice to meet someone else who thinks he has everything under control himself.

I must honestly tell though that in two occasions things went wrong afterall;
One was at work, lending my PC to a collegue in order to arrange for some things on my PC I thought he was better at (he was, but needed a virus to get there :)) and the other occasion, only two weeks after that, was my wife DLing an audiobook for the DSLight, saying to herself "hey ! that is an .exe ?!?" and click it. In the latter case I could save the PC after a good night till 5am or so with some good whiskey, but in the first case I had to give up after some 4 days of trying to recover.

So yes, I'm in the leage of those who think they can see it happen before it really does. But sometimes things are not really under your own control.

One advice I have :
Besides antivirus software actually always slows down your PC to the point of it being useless - so better don't have anti-virus software for that reason - just have it at hand IN ADVANCE. I mean, nothing is worse than needing it at the moment you don't know what to choose, and you really have to buy this one, and that one and another one, just because most are a kind of hoaxes. I can tell you, you really don't want to buy that software when your browser doesn't allow for it anymore (because of that smart virus), and you really don't want to buy it, learning that it won't work in Safe Mode, which of course isn't in the small print. So :

When nothing is the matter and all is up and running, take the time to buy something which is really good, just lay it aside after that - ready to use when you need it.

Guys, this is not for you just using anti-virus software actively already. You are used to it, and to your satisfaction (I suppose). So this is for people like Dave, who just some day may get into deep sh*t, by own fault or not.

2c after one challenging night and a real bad week (no whiskey at work :swoon:)

As I understand, no world record, but here is mine.

Btw Roy, maybe this message came through, maybe not, but the Galleries really should be on the OS disk.

Yep,

C: drive!!
Never knew it had this function but now I do,
But works best on SSD.

I just set-up my music DB (last week),
And run into the problem of having lots of covers.

You ran into that problem ages ago, I guess!!

Nice future in combo with SSD, Peter!

Lightning speed covers, like that!  :good:

Mwah, lightning speed ... I don't know. But twice as fast, yes. :innocent:

PS: Since you will be collecting the SSD, there's a fair chance you can trade for a bigger one on the spot. If needed. But I would call first (and start crying next to the good morning :cry: :)).
[/quote]


Maybe You are Right!!!

You are lucky there to not have thousands of viruses and trojans spread INTO your provider network like i do. i cannot connect for more than 5mins without high risk of getting some sh*t.

That is why i said to install the antivirus BEFORE going online for the very first time. Once i didnt and I had to format and reinstall the OS for how much screwed it got in about one hour or two.

Actually, i use only antivirus/firewall packages, not plain AV, that wouldnt cover the majority of the cr*p going around. Kaspersky and ESET are the only ones that I trust.

Hmm 10-20gb of galleries.
Are those compressed images or bitmap?

Hey Telstar,

They are in .jpg
Why ?
Could it be smaller, then?

Or you are also thinking about 60 GB?

By my mistake my 8G corsair DDR2 were not fully used by OS only 3G.
So went in all kind of memory problems.
In combo with XX and multitasking.
Solved
And music-DB is complete and gallery on C: drive now!
I can say it works like a charm now :yahoo:

Thnx People for helping out
And Peter Thank you for making this software
really THANK YOU !! :veryhappy:

PS: I've set pagefile off (or so for as possible in vista) Multitasking like hell!!

Hey,

Got Windows7 on the OCZ vertex 60GB
Shut down all unnessesary services
Tweaked vista to dead, Even the .bin file that andy74 made worked, thnx for that!
Shutdown several un-used ports, un-board soundcard and such.
Installed some other stuf and ofcourse XX.

Checked the DPC Latency Checker.
Oops, Lots of big red bursts.
Had to shutdown video-card driver.

Better now,  but still doing around 120-150, And It's noticeble in sound.
(in Vista x64 around 35-60)
But still some things are going on.

I think it's a lot faster (Try this week My Current Vista x64 OS on SSD)

SQ
Hmm, What can I say.
These are JUST FIRST impressions, lots a listening must be done first.
But I like the sound of it, But you must consider your current Q settings, just play around a little.
Now listening to Patricia Barber (4,0,0,0,0) kinda like it. It gives me a real Jazzy flavor (on vista on HDD it'was too much)

Overall:
Like the mids and mid-high range the most, gives a certain realism to it.
There is air in the room, gives it a little warmth.

More open soundstage, sounds are more in the room and esspecialy on the sides.
It's just opens up, Cleaner.

for now

roy

PS: Still no 24/96 (don't get it)
(But I think I will go back to Vista)

Why Roy ?

Maybe your soundcard contains explicit settings for different sample rates ? And because you let it fixed on 44.1 it won't go on others ?

It works on XP so,
Why not on Vista or W7, But I will get answers ! And will get it fixed or even get another soundcard, for that matter!
(Didn't really dug in to the problem, for now)
But thats not the issue.
W7 is way too onstable, conflicts with geforce 9800 gtx.
DPC Latency Checker  running wild, little clicks and pops in high range barely noticible but they are there.
Now have a Clean install of  Vista on SSD and all running very smooth. (latency around 20 and stays there)

But overall SQ with Vista on SSD, I have my doubts, have to do more listening.
Sounds to clean to sterile. (would'nt run to store to get one,yet IMO)
Now I have to make a back-up of Vista and later play around with W7
Maybe some advise on making good back-ups, Back-ups that DO work, who has the answer!  :offtopic:

Btw Did you see the W7 snipping tool for cutting image directly from screen, Nice! :teasing:

I think it was in this topic that someone said "long live the backup facility from Windows !", but the other day I tried it (for moving to my SSD), and couldn't find any means to perform the restore !

What I do : get the OS disk out, and mount it in another PC (not as the OS disk). There make a backup of it (I use Adonis), then restore to the new disk on either that PC or another.

An Image backup via Adonis on Vista itself from the live OS disk, does NOT work. Well, not for me. After the restore to the new disk Visa boots, but the desktop remains completely empty, and nothing can be done.



Try to think the SSD emphasizes. So, what you hear is the emphazation of something which is not right in the first place. At least that is my experience.


Do you use the latest drivers ? (I guess so). How officially Vista compatible are they ?

QUOTE
Try to think the SSD emphasizes. So, what you hear is the emphazation of something which is not right in the first place. At least that is my experience.


I do hear you on that *<];-)
Just played, Patricia barber - Cafe blue MFSL - nr 2. Mourning Grace .
Couldn't do that last night, playing loud.
But the drums and beckens ,AmAzInG, that loud and still good sounding.
So what there REALLY is , thats what you get, whether you like it or not.

So Something like the De-emphazed CD's rearly ever used.

PS: Accuphase would be jealous, On this non-moving parts jukebox. Hahaha, So I've said it.  :P

Just listened to Enigma - MCMXC a. D.
The sound supriced me !

All samples in the song have more depth, like there is more, Samples have smoother rol-off, or does this faster. :15a:
Details can be heard, for the first time.

Hmm :whistle:

After weeks of computer work :heat:

Ola,

SSD glitch ?
SSD says there is 30GB on there,
But only 18GB is (witch is still a lot)
Can't find any big files or hidden.
I think total memory counter (or something like that) works bad with vista.
Or in combo with TRIM.
This happened after I tried to make a gallery in xxhe

How big is a clean Vista install ?
Can't be 18GB either.
I can't remember I thought it was something around 11 GB

roy

Peter,

I think this is a XX glitch, when try to make a gallery.
With to much albums at once.
It run out of memory, OK
After deleting everything, I stayed behind with 30GB on the SSD
Now I've copied my previous Gallery to the SSD.
And have a total of 46 GB on C:
Gallery = 15GB, OS=12???, where is the rest
How big it was I don't remember

 roy

Here it is rather consistent. 50.3 ~ 50.4

Keep in mind though that this is - or may be to a large degree determined by the cluster size. For the OS disk, assuming all those small Gallery files will be there, this should be the smallest. This, opposed to the disks holding the real music files, which should be the largest (64KB).
If you don't pay attention to this, each small Gallery File will consume 64KB, while actually it is some 100 bytes only. 64,000 time less ...

Now watch my 274,000 files (the largest part is Gallery files). Times 64,000 I think this is over 17GB.

Moral : always think of (a) the tradeof between faster reading at large files but slower reads on small ones (when cluster size is large), and (b) slower reads on large ones but faster reads on small ones (cluster size is small).

Submoral : when choosing for (a), you will loose disk space on many small files, and when choosing for (b) you will have utilized disk space optimally.

You may need to read it 5 times, but it means that disks containing small files merely must be formatted with a cluster size meeting that small size as good as possible, while disks containing large files *are allowed* to have a cluster size meeting that (and 64KB is far far less than the 20MB ++ files containing music).

What about sleeping on that ? :)
Peter

PS: Good that you bought a 64GB SDD ... hehe

BUT

(... I thought to put this in a separate post)

this is not your issue. Look at the "Size:" and "Size on disk:" which is exactly what I was talking about. In my case as well as in your case there's hardly a difference, which will be the case because the smallestcluster size is the default (and the smallest is the best for the OS disk, as well that it is the best for the Gallery files). Keep in mind your music disks though, which really should have the largest cluster size, with which you gain much speed, and don't loose disk space upon.

So ... where did your bytes go ?
Q : how much discount did you get ?
:swoon:

OS is on standard cluster size
And CD DB is on 32Kb, I thought so.
Never really understood the acual meaning (more or less), but now I do.
Why did'nt anyone mentioned this before.
With discussion on 30 or 60 GB??

Thnx Peter

Don't care about money just music!!!!!!!

Thnx for quick response, Peter.

You are perfectly right. These are very useful tips (merely because of speed), and while I apply them all my life (ok, nearly), I never thought of mentioning it, nor did I think about it at people with response / speed problems. So, my bad I guess.

Anyway, you have it right (as I actually pointed out already), which leaves the reason in the blue for now.

If you make all unhidden files show (like I have), maybe those files are then counted in as well (what about a 20GB Swap File hehe).

Peter

Pagefile is shut of, (don't no if it's best solution but having 8GB and internal memory is faster)
I read a part of your discussion about it but it went nowhere.
Were can I find my pagefile.
So I can delete the content.

Not sure.
But with LESS than 8gb with Vista is better to have >=mem of swap.

Sorry, with less then 8gb on or off

In my last picture : the one but last line (pagefile.sys). In the root. If it's shut off it may not be there at all (hence won't consume space).

Oh well, be glad you have a 60GB SSD sold as 65; my previous one was 56, also sold as 65.
A nice on-going hoax btw. 1MB = 1024KB and 1GB = 1024MB, which normally makes the difference (so any 1TB disk actually is 931GB).
The difference is more than the size of your OS disk !!

:thankyou:

But still would like to know where my 12GB went
On the left your setup.
35GB used on C: but says 46GB  :dntknw:

You have another partion on there ... :yes:

No, not by my means :nea:

But the 12GB I'm missing is exactly the same as the gallery I tried to load in XXHE with save gallery.
Looks like XX put it on a temp location somewhere but it shows nowhere.
The files didn't TRIM maybe, idk
So Vista thinks they are still in use.

Can this even be possible ?

*If* they are in a hidden place, this will be onder the C:\Users folder somewhere (Vista Shadow stuff).
Open a Dos box (RUN from the startbutton - cmd), do CD Users (or CD Gebruikers), and in there type
dir *.mta /s

If nothing shows up, it's not in there as well. If it does, we'll see further.

Nothing found,

I know almost for sure (I've I could make a decent back-up) and I back it up and put it back
it gives me 12GB back.

After cleaning disc ofcourse

And backing up becomes rather important after spending several hours setting up Vista and/or W7.
You want ONE thing 100% working back-ups.
Also needed when flashing your SSD.
Once I can make decent back-up of a OS,
can do some with W7.

btw cant find Adonis anywhere on the net.

Back-up of OS is essential for all XX users !!

Just went into stravinsky here, hehe (4,26,26,0,0 seems to work well for me)

That's because it's Acronis. Sorry. http://www.acronis.nl/promo/ATIH/true-image-2009.html/?source=nl_google&ad=backup+disk&c=2831869134&k=backup&gclid=CPXnnteiz5oCFQeA3godiBeZRw

Please note that once upon a time this was a major backup program. Nowadays I'm not so sure.

Btw Roy, I don't see any hidden files in your last picture (the one next to mine). And I'm sure there are (in the root) ...

 have these settings for 2 days

Acronis isn't working either for me, Thought you ment Acronis.
I did it for me just once after that I wouldn't work, maybe because of crack.

Have to try some other stuff but as you know it takes a lot of time,
But most people make a back-up without trying it really, You think you are save, EEEEEEEhhhh Not!

Ugh,

Now W7 (tweaked) on SSD,
Works for me now, DPC Latency around 90-140 - processor on 0% (or almost)
No peaks in DPC lat.

I'm NEVER EVER going back to Vista.
SQ so much better in W7
And do understand this is just Beta with Beta drivers, but even now it sounds 10 times better then Vista.
Much more relaxing now. (verry happy)

And a BIG pro is: It only gets better.

Roy :whistle:

PS: Did you know that a single SSD is even faster then RAID 0 with SSD

Murning,

And I've got my 12GB back,

Golden setup SSD, W7 (Tweaked) and XXHE Unattended 4,26,26,0,0 or 4,30,30,0,0.
And after a couple of minutes all HDD switches off. so no noize from them either.

Can finally say, money well spend!

Just played Yello - One Second

Man, falling of my chair here, It swings it rockes!!
It's all sounds so right, best experience I've had in a long time.
This, coming out of my system ?!? That loud
What the f*ck

Ah, so finally you are there, right ?

Now wait until you here "my" One Second. I've put through some drastical changes lately ... :teasing:

Anyway, thanks for pointing out W7 sounds better, while I can't switch to that until some dutch version comes along (what will it take ? a year ?). :cry::cry:
hehe

In software or DAC ? :biglol:

Peter you dont have to wait so long...
If you wish to try w7 RC (build 7100) there is allready the language pack that transforms this version to NL. Search for this file
7100.0.090421-1700_x86fre_client_lp_2-GRC1CLP2_DVD.iso and just extract it and install.

Peter,

Just send you email.
With language packs,
Maybe it works.
Thnx for that astacus21!!

Grtz roy

or here http://www.filemail.com/dl.aspx?id=QBACSVCDUJJVZAV

Looks like I have to put W7 on the new pc.

But, Roy which DAC are you using? If that's the x-fi (which i have on my gaming pc), the difference in sound between vista and w7 is likely the cr*ppy creative drivers...

Yes, you could be right, but the difference is hugh, with Vista on SSD sounds very cr*ppy.
So, thats why I choose W7
Find out for your self.
I ain't that happy with the soundcard, but rather wait for Peter's super-duper NOS1 DAC.
Instead of investing in new card.

But Telstar,

I would go for OCZ vertex 60GB or intel x25 80GB (It only differs 50 euros)
W7 is free till october and useable till march.(decide then)

Give it a try, it works stable here. (if you don't mess around with drivers)
And tweak to dead that sh*t as in all/off. services,device manager, logs (lots of logs in W7) all of.
Like to know what you (and others) think of it.

Never liked Vista anyway, hope that MS (finally) gives us a decent HTPC platform.
Only 3 months ago I went out for Vista Ultimate x64 (what i think was a rip off)
New SP2 should come out in december 2008 then april and still isn't there.
(and what is a SP anyway, a bundeld set of updates, what about new features or making things really better)
Making lots of poeha about W7, PEOPLE make a Vista SP2 first, lots of folks spend 200 to 300 euro for Vista already (MF'rs!)
And still not stable.
What we need is a stable platform to work on (if it was'nt for the audio I would still be on XP)
As foundation for our HTPC. (starting to get a little crazy here, several craches no decent means for backup)
Just want to install a (my) clean image, insted of install Vista and doing the settings every (fckng) time manually.
Didn't PC's were inventid for automatisation.
We got to have decent backup's because, how do you want to flash your SSD's then?

I, Mean can it get worse?
OS that tends to crash and cant do back-ups.
money well spend, guess not!?!?

So it's out of MY system by having said this.

Roy

Here some nice info:

Install W7 info
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/installation-instructions.aspx

Compare Test SSD and W7
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1719/windows_7_beta_vs_windows_vista_sp1_ssd_performance_compared/index.html

Good morning, rise and shine

Just used Vista x64 SATA drivers on W7 works fine!
Think I have now less till none giltches between songs at all. :veryhappy:
And in vista had it all the time.

Only "none" is allowed. :teasing:

I will count them if needed,
But still nill.

Works like a charm, as well as the SQ :whistle:

Listening to some Art Of Noise :tongue2:

Do you have "Copy to XX Drive" (or whatever it's called) ticked ?
(only asking because that would be the most difficult situation, but presumeably the best for SQ))

off-course :)

Just got done listening to 96/24 Kinks - Soap Opera with a friend heh jaws were a dropping; That and some 88.1/24 BSO recordings.  pretty nice stuff some of this hirez

here, is this topic related... no drop outs here.

I think Peter did his job well
What big plans do you have for us, Peter !
How is progress on DAC.
And can you explain maybe, why (how come) W7 sound so different then vista.
Why DOES it even sounds different
Where comes it down too.
Because it sounded also good on a normal HDD.

Glad SeVeReD is doeing well also,
There are not that many who have a SSD for XX on this forum, I guess.
Telstar almost.

A new pc should work fine in W7 (which didnt recognize my scsi gear).

I didnt post about a test I did with my infrasonic quartet, but i can say that it sounds amazingly good for what's inside and the cost. I cannot remove it from my boyfriend computer, though. He hated the sound bugs of the dmx6.

So, I have to buy something for the music pc.
I have spare the dmx6fire that i took out but the drivers are too buggy in vista (and i bet in w7 too), so that will go to the best offerer and i'll either get another Quartet or an Essence (that will thereafter replace the x-fi in my gaming pc), more likely the second option because i'm really curious to check it. Oh, i could also try a juli@.

I have used vista since the RC1 and the 32bit version has been always rock solid. the 64bit instead took several months to become stable, but close to SP1 release it is. Sp2 will probably put it in the same league of W7.

On my gaming computer, Vista x64 is faster than W7. But I believe the reason is that the former sits on a 15k scsi raid, while the poor W7 was put (and still is) on a plain sata disk of decent performance.
What's the point of all this? I'd never install Vista or W7 on a sata platter disk, period. They dont have the multitaskign speed (IOPS) to make it work smooth.

I have the RC (both 32 and 64 bit, from official MS downloads and with beta keys), so I will be fine til next june or whatever. But I'll replace with the RTM version for sure, IF they actually did more improvements to the audio stack.

I have the build 7077 (i think) on this pc and it doesnt sound any better than Vista, with the same x-fi that you have. Probably you have a different version of drivers in W7. I dont plan to mess again with install to put the RC in this computer, I will directly on the new music pc that will be built this summer.

Now, to answer the first question, from my dealer the price difference between the 60g vertex and the 80g intel is close to 100€ than to 50. I dont remember when are scheduled the next intel price drops, but i think together with 32nm nand and bigger capacity drives, so likely Q4 (too late).

Besides, I gave up on imaging and backup of the OS. I just do a format and reinstall. Of course the OS always resides on a separate DISK, while documents and personal settings are on another one, that is never formatted and backuped often.
You could try norton ghost, but I dont think will work either.

Some very nice soundcards,

Have to re-consider my current set-up.
Maybe try one of these in near future ?
But there are problems with the Asus Essence as you have read (on this forum).
Maybe try the  ESI - Juli@.
The Infrasonic Quartet is harder to get here.

Can you play 24/96 files with your X-fi, Telstar?
Because mine doesn't

Roy, please call people by their nickname, unless they present themselves otherwise.
Thanks.

Hi Peter,
There must be another way to add all the coverart to the Gallery (I hope). I am thinking to buy a SSD memory. So 32 GB SSD becomes 64, ...128..... All the music with coverart is on the external drives. I suppose for browsing purposes you put the coverart in the Gallery but...Is it possible to make thumpnails of this CoverArt to reduce the size of the Gallery. 40GB of Gallery size....how many records are that ????

Hi Johan,

Making thumbnails of it is not useful because of various reasons hard to explain. But 40GB ? :nea:
My 12000 albums occupy 20GB with relatively much coverart per album (of large size). So I would not worry too much ...

Peter

Ya, maybe I've added more albums already than I thought... but just under 30gb (especially the way I've been starting to scan whole cd inserts hehe) may be what it will be like this summer.

Yeah, I've read it. But the essence will go in this computer... still undecided.

Yes, i can play 24/96 (i dont have many, though).

Vista SP1

Well, I now found a most strange problem, of which I assume it is SSD related. Not sure though ! (but I never saw something like it);

At preparing for a nice backup of the OS disk (which is the OCZ Vertex) - this time to go to another SSD being a bit smaller - I had to remove some data from the OS disk, and thought it was good to clean up my XX TemporaryData folder which by now contained 12450 files occupying some 10GB. Although 12450 log files might indicate a very heavy start-stop usage of XXHighEnd :) it is really not all that much for amount of files, and the 10GB for sure is not. However :

A few days earlier I already tried to delete the logfiles of a certain type, and after selecting those it took 5 minutes before the context menu (after rightclick) showed up, and next ... nothing but an empty frame, though guessing that a "sure - press OK" would be default, I pressed enter, but I saw nothing more happening than that frame disappearing. Also, after that I couldn't start a new instance of Explorer, because only (and similarly to the before) the frame of it showed. Had to reboot. After that it seemed to be the files had gone indeed.

Yesterday I wanted to backup the remaining log files to another drive, and at selecting all the files again it took ages for the context menu to appear, but when it did and choosing copy, the paste in the addressed explorer window did nothing. And again at fireing up a new Explorer window, it carried an empty frame only.
I examined the memory useage, and saw 1.92GB used, that being my amount of memory installed.

I couldn't get away of that used memory, so I rebooted.
(at this time I was thinking that the OS disk would be destroyed right before of the planned backup :swoon:).

I investigated a bit, and found that right at selecting the files the used memory would jump to all being used at once, but as long as I bailed out, it freed again. Hmm ...
Attempts to select smaller amounts of files (like 25% of it) did not change a thing.
Btw, in the mean time I occasionally saw "out of memory" messages, that for sure making everything go wrong after it, like the empty frames I saw before. Also, quite dangerous IMO, because if the OS really is out of memory, *anything* can happen.

I couldn't find any way to move the files, and ended up starting a Dos box, and use XCOPY from there, followed by a DEL *.*. No problem using this means.

Again, I can't be sure it is the SSD impeeding for this behavior, but I sure didn't see anything like it before.
Maybe with W7 this is solved (if cause by the SSD at all), because that's officially supporting SSDs as they say.

Like 2 months ago, had something familiar, wanted to delete my xx Gallery, (on vista)
After deleting files are gone, but didn't get my space back.
Also about 10 GB of files
However, SSD and deleting, some work has to be done on this subject.

IMO W7 is more prepaired then Vista, to handle a SSD.
Talking about overall performance, not just audio.

But Peter, give W7 a try. really !
Vista and SSD, no good!

Can't give you a specific reason but it all feels more stable and faster


PS: days and days of running chkdsk, memtest and other diagnostic programs to solve my problems
      yesterday had a faulty HDD, But I think thats because of faulty memory
      Can't trust anything anymore over here. Have to get to te bottum of this.
      First of all, making backups for now (some testing programs can overwrite your data)
      But this comes with the territory, I guess, being on frontend of technology (XX in beta, W7 in beta, Vista not fully prepaired for SSD, SSD is new technology)
      Only good thing, about it , is the knowledge getting out of this
     

Going to check W7 pre-rtm. The build 7264 is burned and ready to be tested :D

Hope key will work,

Still testing here,
Will be solved this week, or throw all out.
Start to get a little crazy over here, it just takes too much time.

Did new OS install, and on the way installed AHCI driver.
Its working,

But not so important for me now.
Tonight doeing another extensive RAM test.

My PC is spread out over all over te floor
Disconnected everything unnessary.

And let it run overnight

patience is my middle name, but not for long !

Grtz

Ya, I've been here with computers.  Only once thankfully when building a new computer and was at a complete loss why it didn't boot/stay on.  Most of the time when a machine dies and I don't know why ... ps?ram?hdd?.... by that time it's time to buy another.  GL I hope you hunt down the culprit.